Unit Three: Modern Europe (1800-1914) Chp. 7 The Birth of Modern Industrial Society Introduction: The Industrial Revolution (Part I) The Industrial Revolution was a long, slow process in which production shifted from hand tools to machines and in which new sources of power such as steam and electricity replaced human and animal power. The Industrial Revolution had to distinct stages. During the first stage, from about 1750 to 1850, Great Britain took the lead in shifting to new methods of production. During the second stage, from the mid 1800s to about 1914, the nations of Western Europe and the United States became modern industrial powers. The Industrial Revolution was to transform completely the patterns of life in these nations. Britain began to forge ahead of France in terms of production by 1789 when France had the experienced the Revolution. Britain then became the leading European nation in the Industrial Revolution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why was Britain the centre of the Industrial Revolution universe? 1) Agricultural Revolution The revolution in agriculture led to industrial changes. The changes in farming increased the amount and variety of food production. During the1700s, farmers were planting new crops like potato and maize (corn), that were introduced from the Americas. Farmers began to use new ways to develop their land so that it was more productive: a) Crop Rotation Since the Middle Ages, farmers had planted the same crop in a field year after year and on every third year, they left the field fallow to prevent the soil from wearing out. In the 1730s, Charles Townshend figured out that farms did not have to be left fallow if farmers would rotate the crops they planted in a field. For example, he suggested that farmers grow wheat or barely in a field for one or two years and then plant clover or turnips in the field for one or two years. Clover and turnips replenished the soil with the nutrients that wheat and barley used. Clover and turnips also provided an excellent food source for animals and this allowed farmers to raise cattle and sheep. As the cost of meat became cheaper, people could add more protein to their diet.
Page 2 b) New Farm Machines: New farm machines also increased production. Jethro Tull developed a seed drill that planted seeds in straight rows. This was a huge improvement over the method of scattering the seeds at random which could make fields a tangle of crops and weeds. The seed drill also reduced the amount of seed used in planting, and let farmers Weed around the straight rows of growing crops. The 1700s witnessed farmers use iron plows instead of wooden plows. In the 1800s, wealthy landowners purchased mechanical reapers and threshers which made harvesting crops easier. This all increased farm production. c) The Enclosure Method: Changes in land ownership in Britain also fuelled the Agricultural Revolution. Since the Middle Ages, farmers had worked small strips of land in scattered fields. They grazed their animals an gathered timber on common or public lands. (In the 1500s, wealthy landowners began to claim these common lands). The enclosure movement was the fencing off of public lands by landowners, spread rapidly in the 1700s. The enclosure method made farming more efficient because wealthy landowners farmed larger amounts of land and experimented with new crops. The enclosure method forced small farmers off land and some became tenant farmers on land owned by others. Others went into towns in search of work. Conclusion: The Agriculture Revolution helped set the stage for the Industrial Revolution. - With more food available, people s diet and health improved. - There was a greater growth in population - The demand for manufactured goods, such as clothing, grew. - The more efficient farming methods meant that fewer people needed to work the land. - Unemployed farmers, including those forced off the land by the enclosure movement, formed a new labour force. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 3 2) Changes in the Textile Industry: Inventions within the textile industry created new demands for laborers. A new demand for cotton goods emerged. This fabric was light, pleasant to touch, easy to wash, and more suitable for warm weather than wool. The domestic system of cottage manufacturing wool cloth was not able to keep up with the rising demands for cloth. The domestic system of for manufacturing wool cloth was developed in 1500 and 1600s. They supplied rural families with raw wool and cotton. In their own cottages, family members cleaned and spun the wool or cotton into thread. They then used land looms to weave the thread into cloth. In the 1700s, new inventions came out that would change the textile Industry: a) Mechanical Inventions: i) John Kay invented the flying shuttle that replaced the hand-held shuttle to speed the weaving process (1733). This device was pushed from one side of the loom to the other and allowed a weaver to more than double his production of cloth. ii) James Hargreaves, a carpenter, invented the spinning jenny (1764). It allowed one person to spin many threads at a time. He attached Several spindles to a single spinning wheel. iii) Samuel Crompton developed the steam-driven loom in 1779 and was used by most of the industry by 1820. iv) Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a machine that increased the supply of raw cotton and thus gave the British cotton industry a bigger boost. (1793). Before cotton fibers could be spun into thread, workers had to remove sticky seeds by hand, an extremely slow process. Eli s machine tore the fibers from the seeds, speeding up the process of cleaning the cotton fibers. His machine made it possible for a single slave on an American cotton plantation to turn out as much raw cotton as 50 slaves had been able to do by hand. By the 1830s, Britain was importing 280 million pounds of raw cotton from around the world but mostly from the United States. b) The Factory System: Factories began because: i) they were necessary to help meet the demands for cotton. ii) new spinning machines and weaving machines were expensive. iii) these machines needed to be set up near a river where running water turned a water wheel to power the machines. iv) workers and machines were brought together in one place to manufacture goods.
Page 4 Inventors built spinning mills and started hiring hundreds of workers to run the new machines. Everyone had to work a set number of hours each day and workers were paid daily or weekly wages. c) Development of the Steam Engine: Steam power became a major source of energy for the textile factories. The idea of steam power existed since 1698 when Thomas Savery built a steam-driven pump to remove water from flooded coal mines. Unfortunately, Savery s pump frequently exploded because of the intense pressure of the steam. James Watt developed a more improved steam engine in 1769. He used a condenser which made the use of steam power more economical. His steam engine produced revolutionary changes in the production of goods. It was the major source of power and transportation. In the first two decades of the 19 th century, Robert Fulton of the USA made the first steamboat and George Stephenson of England adapted the steam engine to the railway. The locomotive carried people and goods faster and more efficiently. Manufactured goods could be produced in quantity and quality as never before, and they could be exported more quickly to large markets. The steam engine also brought changes in the mining of iron and coal. d) Development of the Iron and Coal Industries: The use of the steam engine required the use of coal and iron. Britain had large deposits of both. The Industrial revolution boosted the output of both coal and iron and made an improved quality of iron. To produce iron, ore has to be heated to high temperatures to burn off impurities. At first, charcoal, a fuel made by burning hard wood, was used to heat the ore. But hard woods were becoming scarce in Britain. In the early 1700s, Abraham Darby developed used coke, a form of coal, in place of charcoal. Henry Cort further improved the making of iron. He developed the puddling process which made iron stronger and less likely to crack under pressure. He also developed the technique for producing sheets of iron. Britian quardrupled its production of iron between 1788 and 1806. There was a boom in the coal business too because it was used for making iron and for steam powered engines. In the 1850s, the iron industry boomed again with the help of Henry Bessmer. He developed the procedure that made the production of steel, an alloy of iron and other materials cheaper and easier. The Bessemer process blasts cold air through heated iron to
Page 5 remove impurities making a stronger and workable steel, which triggered the growth of other industries e) Advances in Transportation and Communication: Industry depended on good transportation to bring raw goods to the factories and to distribute finished goods. The building of canals, roads and railroads were a result of this need. i) Canals In 1759, the Duke of Bridgewater built a canal to connect his coal mines, and factories. Soon canals were being built all over the country. ii) Roads Scottish engineer, John McAdam invented the road surface made of crushed stone. This surface made roads usable in all weather. By the 1800s, road travel became almost as fast as it had been in Roman times. iii) Railroad industry For years, mine carts had been pulled along iron rails by workers and donkeys. In 1829, George Stephenson, a mining engineer, developed the Rocket, the first steam-powered locomotive. The Rocket could barrel along iron rails at 58 km an hour (36miles/hour), which was an astounding speed at the time. Between 1840 and 1850, the British built over 8,000 km of railroad tracks. As steel rails replaced iron rails, trains reached speeds of 85 km/hour. Railroads brought raw goods, factories and markets closer together. iv) Steam Ships An American engineer, Robert Fulton, developed a way to use steam to power ships. In 1807, he successfully tested the Clermont. A paddlewheeled steamship, on the Hudson River. By 1850, steamships regularly crossed the oceans. The steamship and the railroad improved the communications between nations and across the world v) Other Innovations: - 1837, American Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, which sent messages by electrical impulse. Messages now took minutes and seconds to arrive. - 1851, the first underwater telegraph cable was installed under the English Channel making rapid communication possible between Britain and the continent possible. Conclusion: By 1830, Britain had become the world s leading industrial power. With a population of 21 million, less than 10 percent of the total population of Europe in 1850, Britain was producing 2/3s of the world s coal, one-half of its iron and one-half of its cotton cloth.
Unit Three: Modern Europe (1800-1914) Chp. 7 The Birth of Modern Industrial Society Intro: The Spread of Industrialization (Part II) Once there was peace in the continent, other countries began to use the English experience in order to increase their own wealth. Several countries recruited skilled craftworkers from foreign competitors, provided subsidies to industries and protected infant industries with tariffs. Some sectors of the economy, such as mines, naval dockyards, armament factories, railways and other public utilities where high capital costs were prohibitive to private entrepreneurs, were nationalized to promote development. Indirect government assistance in the form of lifting restrictions on the movement of labour and goods as well as providing stable currencies and central banking facilities also encouraged industrial development. By 1880, European competition, coupled with Britain s older and less efficient machinery, meant Britain was being undersold in many markets by its continental rivals. The French Revolution wars slowed industrialization in continental Europe. The movement of armies across the continent, the heavy casualties and the division of labour into industries that provided clothes, arms and provisions for the military limited the industrial process and magnified Britain s early lead. Competition from cheap British imports, expensive technology, and high capital costs slowed development even after European disputes were settled at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. 1) Belgium Belgium which became independent from Holland in 1830, was the first continental Country to undergo heavy industrialization. Why? * Belgium developed a major credit and marketing facilities. * Belgium, like Britain, had large deposits of iron and coal. * Belgium expanded its railway system after becoming independent to exploit its resources. (Soon Belgium would be exporting iron and coal to France, and machinery to Holland and Germany. 2) France France lagged behind Belgium until 1880. Why? * The railway boom in the 1830s illustrated the weakness of France s coal and iron industries as much of the demand for iron that was generated by the railways had to be met by imports. * France did not establish a major credit system or marketing facilities until the mid 1800s. It was not until the 1850s, when improved methods of smelting ore were introduced and Louis Napoleon provided loans to manufacturers and encouraged the development of credit banks for industry, that France finally experienced an industrial boom. * The French Franc, as a result of political unrest and gov. debt, was an unstable currency.
Page 2 3) Prussia Among the German states, Prussia led the way in industrialization and railway building. * It eliminated all internal tariffs in its own territory * Railway expansion occurred in the 1840s and 1850s. * Coal resources in Saxon, Silesia and the Saar were developed. (By 1880, Germany was producing more coal than the rest of continental Europe combined, although this was still less than half the production of Great Britain.) * In 1834, it spearheaded the formation of the Zollverein, a tariff union that included many of the German states. (When Germany unified in 1871, the wealth of Prussia and the Zollverein provided the basis for further industrial growth. Other European states were slower to develop an industrial base) This urged the flow of goods, which opened up the Rhine River as an important transportation route. Prior to 1850, there were few coke furnaces producing pig iron outside of Silesia. The introduction of this process into the Ruhr in the late 1850s led to an annual increase in Production of 8.5 percent between 1855-1870. Developments in high-grade steel led to rapid expansion of the armament industry. By 1880, German production of iron and steel exceeded that of all continental countries and was a significant competitor of the British industry. 4) Russia * In Russia, the scarcity of free labour slowed industrial development. * Even after the emancipation of serfs in 1861, Russia lacked an effective transportation system, a capital market, and a stable currency. * The groundwork (above mentioned points) was set up until the 1860s, 1870s. (Railway network increased from 1626km to 22 865km; over 350 joint stock commercial banks were formed; and the currency was stabilized as the country adopted the gold standard. * Sergei Witte, an aggressive finance minister from 1892 to 1903 led to a huge industrial growth in the 1890s. 5) Elsewhere a) Italy by 1880, little industrial growth occurred. Why? A lack of coal and iron held back industrialization until the 20 th century; few developments occurred in the north near the Po River. b) Austrian Empire lack of developed resources restricted industrialization around Vienna; production was limited and primarily for export.
Page 3 Conclusion: With the growth of industrialization the distance between the rich an poor became wider. The Congress of Vienna had distinguished between the greater and the lesser military powers. By the end of the 19 th century, the Industrial Revolution created another kind of distinction based on production and trade, and the 3 big powers that had industrialized- England, France, and Germany almost completely controlled the events of Europe and the much of the World. Large states that had limited industrialization such as Austria, Russia, and Italy had become middle powers. Those states that failed to industrialize such as Spain, Portugal and Turkey remained at the bottom end of the European hierarchy.
Unit Three: Modern Europe (1800-1914) Chp. 7 The Birth of Modern Industrial Society Intro: The Social Effects of the Industrial Revolution (Part III) The Industrial Revolution had numerous effects on the world. It social impact was immense. The age of the putting-out or handicraft work which existed since 1500, whereby many labourers were farmers who made things in their spare time to increase their income. A merchant would bring raw materials to his labourers in different locations and pick up their finished product and then market the goods ( putting-out system ) 1) Population Boom Europe experienced a population boom between 1800 and 1850. *Europe s population rose from 188 million in 1800 to 266 million in 1850. (Britain s population rose from 10 million in 1800 to 21 million in 1850) Britain s economic growth outgrew its population which was the opposite for the rest Europe. Labour in Europe was plentiful and cheap, but peasants and workers lived in declining standards and often could not buy manufactured goods. 2) The Growth of Factories and the Age of the Machine The growth of factories had an impact on Europeans. a) The growth of factories led to an increase in the size and number of cities. (ex. England s Manchester the centre of the cotton industry grew from 77,000 in 1801 to 303,000 in 1850.) b) A shift of population from the country to the city in Europe and North America occurred. (The new urban environment meant that one s neighbour was next door, ) c) The new work environment of the factory and the machine meant that people worked by the clock. (vs. on the farm where he or she rose with the sun and worked in accordance with the needs of the day and the season) d) The machine altered the employee and employer relationship. (Prior to the 19th century, most people, peasants and craftsmen, knew their employers well and had some sort of personal relationship with them. Now, labour became depersonalized - workers were directed by a foreman, not the owner. Employers were engaged in in a cut-throat competitive struggle (Charlie, and the Chocolate Factory 1964 Roald Dahl British with Norweigen descent) The foreman was tough since they were responsible for increasing production. The individual labour was a pair of hands to be used when needed.)
e) Work conditions were often terrible in the new factories. (Men, women, and children worked in crowded conditions, with dangerous machinery, and for long hours.) f) Government and Individuals Respond Not until the 1830s, did the British parliament order an investigation of work in the factories. Page 2 i) The Sadler Report: was the result of the parliamentary committee s report. (example of an interview from the report handout) ii) The first effective factory act was passed in 1833. It limited the hours of child labour in textile mills and appointed factory inspectors to administer it. iii) Arnold Toynbee delivered his Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in 1880-81. (These lectures were the first scholarly assessment of the Industrial Revolution. He condemned the long work hours, low wages, unsafe work conditions, no guarantee of employment, no provisions for old age, a discipline determined by machine, and whole families working because the income of one or two people was insufficient. He stated, the effects of the Industrial Revolution prove that free competition may Produce wealth without producing well-being. iv) T.S. Ashton : He believed workers were better off in the 19 th century than before. Why? - the factory system offered and required regularity of employment, and therefore, greater stability in consumption. - 1790-1830, factory production increased rapidly. - prices fell for textiles which reduced the price of clothing - gov. contracts for uniforms and army boots started new industries - after 1820, the price of tea, coffee and sugar also fell - the growth of trade unions, savings banks, newspapers, schools, non-conformist chapels. Conclusion: A new working class of workers came into being and problems between the employer and employee grew more serious. Karl Marx called this new labour class the proletariat someone who did not own the means of production (tools, plants or raw material); they owned only their labour and were therefore at the mercy of their employers and the market. These new urban workers became aware of their power as a whole and tried to force change.